Design and Development of In-Process-Resolution-Tunable Stereolithography System Utilizing Two-Photon Polymerization

Two-photon lithography is considered a promising technology because it can achieve high resolution up to scale of 100 nm among additional processing technologies; further, it can be used to fabricate nano-/microstructures. However, it requires an unrealistic long time to obtain a practical model that is close to the human organ diameter in the order of millimeters. In this study, an in-process-resolution-tunable (iPRT) stereolithography system is reported, that realizes an optimal laser processing pathway using a new algorithm that automatically generates the processing pathway obtained by dividing the fabrication area by the effect of microstructure disappearance during the surface offset. It is demonstrated that the aforementioned algorithm can produce structures up to 50 times faster than the conventional methods and can be applied to cell culture scaffold for regenerative medicine. Two-photon lithography is considered a promising technology because it can achieve high resolution up to scale of 100 nm. However, a considerably long time is required to obtain a practical model in the order of millimeters. In this work, in-process-resolution-tunable (iPRT) stereolithography system is developed, which realizes 50 times faster fabrication using a novel algorithm.image (c) 2024 WILEY-VCH GmbH